


Refresh

by JediDryad



Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: Breaking up is hard to do, F/M, Force Healing, Grief/Mourning, I promise, Inappropriate Use of the Force, awkward emotional orgasms, contextually at least, crossing professional boundaries, jedi masters have feelings too, mild dubcon of the what-the-heck-was-that variety, no fish sex, post Planet of Twilight, problematic medical ethics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:09:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24076504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JediDryad/pseuds/JediDryad
Summary: Callista's final rejection of Luke on Nam Chorios has left him heartbroken and grieving. He needs a healer, and one just happens to be on planet when he arrives home.Faced with the depth of the pain radiating from her Jedi Master, Cilghal offers a mysterious ancient treatment, and then everything goes off the rails a bit.No fish sex, I promise.
Relationships: Luke Skywalker/Cilghal
Comments: 15
Kudos: 13





	Refresh

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evilmouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilmouse/gifts).



> For Evilmouse in an attempt to assist in her mission to pair Luke with all the ladies of the galaxy.
> 
> Content warning: there's dubious consent related to medical experiences in this story. While I've intended a mild, shared experience between beings who trust each other and just didn't know what they were getting into, if reading about that sort of stuff makes your day worse, please skip this one.

She was drawn to pain. It spoke to her with a clear voice even when she struggled to make sense of other much fuzzier signals from the Force. Sometimes she could sense it before the victim did. She would wake in the night and know where there would soon be injury or grief, and she was pulled towards it in the inexorable way of the undertow.

Cilghal had struggled with this reality ever since her skills were discovered. As a healer, she was called to pain, and required to do something about it. 

At first, this seemed simple: heal injuries, calm nerves, soothe grief. 

But it was not simple at all. Despite the overwhelming sense of it, the pain was not hers, and her rights to it were limited. Often, someone who appeared offering to help with pain was not at all welcome to the sufferer who did not wish for assistance. It was not helpful if she was there too soon, forcing beings to acknowledge feelings they were not ready to examine, or worse if she seemed to foresee injury or loss that had not yet happened. Then she would be blamed for it, and could easily make it all worse.

Over the years, she had worked to balance her calling to heal with the rights to privacy and choice of the sentients around her. She’d needed the help of Kam and Kirana Ti to build careful shields so she would not feel so strongly the hurt and injury other beings did not choose to share with her. She did her best to allow herself to be sought by those in need rather than pulled into their midst by an insistent demand many were not conscious of.

These provisions had certainly made life easier in her new senatorial role where empathy was both an essential servant and a terrible master.

Still, she remained a Jedi, and she sought out guidance from the Force in making her decisions. Sometimes she knew that the tugs and nudges she felt were drawing her to a place she was needed even if neither she nor the being who would need her knew it yet.

It was that sort of nudge that had brought her from her senatorial suite on Coruscant back to Yavin a few days earlier and she waited for the reason to present itself.

With hard-cultivated patience, she had been enjoying her visit. It was lovely to see her fellow graduates: hear of Kam’s teaching adventures, pour over new findings with Tionne, discuss the currents with Streen. While she was needed in other roles at the moment, Cilghal planned, one day, to return, and teach. As she was reminded whenever she was on-world, the climate on the moon suited her entirely: humid and teeming with life. It was like bathing in the Force. A beautiful holiday for her.

She was meditating in a sudden afternoon rainshower when the reason she’d been called to Yavin became abundantly clear. 

Master Skywalker arrived with the latest provisions shuttle and he had been carefully impenetrable as he’d greeted everyone and pleasantly addressed new students at the evening meal.

She’d noticed him much less composed when greeting Kam, Tionne and herself, and he’d retreated to his suite after the meal without much socializing.

She watched his shoulders slump as he left the room and Tionne slipped up next to her. In carefully chosen words, she explained that he had been following another lead in his search to find Jedi Ming.

He had come back alone.

Kam walked over and wrapped an arm around his wife. Tionne returned the embrace.

“She has made it clear she will not be returning to him.” he sighed, “I think he might believe her this time.”

“It’s good you’re here,” Tionne added.

Cilghal only nodded, wondering if her presence would do any good. Master Skywalker seemed disinclined to seek the counsel of anyone when it came to his relationship with Callista.

She was preparing for bed when it happened: fervent loss and deep despair burst through her shields like a swell over a dam. The power of the flood of feelings took her breath away and was unfettered enough that any number of the new students might also be overwhelmed and have no reference point for managing their reaction.

Yes, despite all indication on the Master’s part that he did not want assistance, it was her responsibility to address this, for the sake of unfledged Force users if nothing else.

Pulling her outer robes back on, Cilghal drifted out of her room and followed the vortex of pain to the rooftop lookout. She stepped out into a night that was warm and dewy, one of those nights that reminded her of home. 

He sat on a bench near the edge of the lookout, slumped forward with his head in his hands.

“Master Skywalker.” she called quietly.

He turned, and his expression matched his sense, drawn and shadowed with trouble.

“Jedi Cilghal,” he responded, and she could tell he was trying to pull himself together.

“No, Master Skywalker, I can tell you hurt. It would be a waste of energy to pretend otherwise.”

He seemed to shrink and she could feel shame weave its way into the mix of emotions coursing out around him.

“I’m sorry to disturb your evening.” He spoke so quietly it was almost a whisper.

“It is Callista?”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

That was the response Cilghal had come to expect from those who had not sought her out. She knew she would need to be careful to choose the right words, or the way would be blocked.

There was space on the bench next to him and she risked sitting down.

“I am sad she decided her place was elsewhere.” Cilghal mused.

“I enjoyed her company a great deal. She was kind and thoughtful with so much wisdom and knowledge to share.”

She smiled to herself.

“She often spoke of the sea and missed it as I do.I never expected to meet a human with such an appreciation for aquatic matters.”

Luke smiled a little. 

“Thank you for reminding me I’m not the only one who misses her. Sometimes, I wonder.”

“I wish she hadn’t left.” he continued bleakly.

“I know why she did, now. I wanted it to be different.I still do”

Cilghal sat quietly, radiating the calm she had cultivated for moments like these. She tried to convey the tranquility of the ocean depths, the silence of the embrace.

He took a deep breath and when he let it out, a sound very much like a sob accompanied the exhalation.

“It is overwhelming me.” 

He looked at her, “like a tidal wave instead of a steady stream. I can’t...I can’t…”

The master let out a strangled cry and dropped his face in his hands again.

“I’m so tired. Tired of all of this: trying to run this place and never quite feeling like I’m succeeding. And then even if I do succeed, I will still be the Jedi Master, and alone. Always alone.”

He squeezed his eyes shut.

“I don’t want to be alone, Cilghal. If I’d known that was how it had to be I’d have…”

He drifted off. Lost in his own sea.

She refrained from mentioning numerous graduate jedi who were romantically linked, both in and out of the order. While it would be good for him to remember, it would not be useful to anyone in Master Skywalker’s frame of mind. 

Instead, she sank into herself, seeking the wisdom she needed to help her friend and Master move forward with his pain.

There were many records she had studied, work from the old healers, conflicting ideas about how to treat grief. Some claimed there was nothing to do but be present and wait for time to pass. Others suggested that the pain of grief was physical as well as emotional and could be treated with the same procedures used to treat injury and ailments.

One such treatment came to mind. It had long piqued her curiosity. In all accounts, it was spoken of in a strangely figurative way, replete with a euphemistic tone that seemed out of place in scientific discussions of Force healing. It left her unclear of precisely how the procedure operated,whether it was a procedure at all, and whether it was intended to work with human physiology, but it glittered enough in the Force for her to consider risking it.

“There was a technique I found in an old text a few weeks ago,” she finally said tentatively. She felt urged to push forward, “to assist someone who is weary and help refresh them.”

“I should sleep.” He murmured, as though anticipating she would send him to his bed.

Then “I’m too tired to sleep”

The despair was rolling off him now.

“Then perhaps it will help?” She hedged, waiting for some sort of answer.

He stared out into the night another moment then nodded a silent assent.

“You might wish to lie down”

He stretched out across the bench and she shifted so his head rested in her lap.

His easy acquiescence was unexpected.

She hesitated.

“I don’t know precisely what this does.”

He must have sensed her concern. He opened eyes that were sad but clear as the waters when Daca shone brightly reflecting the azure glow of the sky.

“Cilghal. I trust your judgment and your track record. I know you mean me no harm. If you think this might help, I am willing to give it a try.”

She spread her long, webbed fingers like a net and cradled his head resting fingers softly against each of his temples. Luke closed his eyes and she recognized the lines on his face as a human expression of pain. Emotional torment manifesting as physical injury. Yes, this might work.

She reached out to the Force, visualizing the Master’s body and spirit. His suffering was thick and murky. A roiling black cloud sat between him and the healing energy she could feel coursing through her. Beneath it, she could sense the exhaustion he’d detailed. 

She widened her awareness to the temple below them where she quickly sensed the care and concern of the other senior jedi. She pulled their threads of feeling and wove them with her own.

You are not alone, Master Skywalker, she offered as she twined the love and acceptance of his fellow jedi and used it to push at his pain.

The cloud pushed back. It was impermeable.

Cilghal was not deterred. The direct path through a storm was not always possible. Sometimes there were routes through the whorls and eddies.

Refocusing her attention, she examined the edges of the darkness. She saw that it was not a single storm but a confluence of squalls of grief, some stronger than others. All of them flashed and crackled, energy with no place to go, hidden behind a curtain of denial by a leader who believed he should not feel these things anymore.

Cilghal changed her approach and slipped between the flashes of agony. Dodging strikes and blocked passages, she sought out the weary centre of his pain as it clung to his heart like barnacles on coral. Offering the light in her soul, she gently poked at the lumps of grief she found, unhooking them from Luke’s spirit when possible. Not every tumorous form could be moved, but as she banished those she could, light flooded into the spaces it had been kept out of, and she could feel the master’s energy flow again: warm, kind, passionate.

It was discomfiting to slide this deep into the spirit of another being, too deep for a healer. Too intimate for a friend, she realized, wondering briefly if she should stop. The thought was whisked away as Luke responded instinctively to her actions, his own natural brightness pushing to meet hers and with it the sense of old desires, the forgotten dreams of a younger being. 

Cilghal was spellbound.

As the Jedi master’s sense reacted to her manipulations, she had the sense of muscles clenching and unclenching in the new light, limbs warming and pulsing. She probed at the growing glow, encouraging it to expand to see if that would dislodge the remaining shadows. The light grew within Master Skywalker and wisps of colour shot outwards in her mind. 

Suddenly, the web of energy she’d woven, blossomed in front of her, blasting the strength of the master back at her. Cilghal floundered as sensations alien and yet uncanny filled the space between them and spilled over into her spirit. There was an overwhelming pleasure at the edge of her boundaries and she had little choice but to let the walls burst.

Master Skywalker cried out and she was caught up in a deeply human euphoria that left her gasping and reminded her that she still could drown.

Her eyes flew open, and she found she was gripping the bench tightly with both hands as she tried to catch her breath. She realized Luke Skywalker was no longer stretched out with his head in her lap. Instead, he was sprawled against the half wall across from her, chest heaving under his robes. His eyes were almost as wide as her own as he stared in shock at what had just happened.

“Cilghal. Are you alright?” He asked. He wiped a hand across his face. She noticed it was now covered in a sheen of sweat.

She nodded with uncertainty.

“Do you think you can sleep now, Master Skywalker?”, she asked quietly, feeling a need to be alone with her thoughts.

He ran a hand through his hair and swallowed. Then, looking more like the holos she’d seen of him from many years ago than like the burdened Master she’d worked with, he nodded and quickly removed himself from the roof.

The alien sensations had almost cleared from her system by the time Master Skywalker had disappeared down the stairs, leaving behind only an odd sense of inappropriateness that would have felt like violation had she not been the one who suggested trying it in the first place.

“No, not an appropriate technique for humans,” she thought quietly to herself as the discomfiting feeling slowly dissipated and she too went to her bed.

The next morning, Master Skywalker found her just after breakfast in the bustling cafeteria.

While she could still sense his sadness, the roiling cloud of despair seemed to have dissipated. The tide had gone out again for the moment at least.

He was radiating awkward nervousness though, most un Masterlike.

“I wanted to thank you for your help last night.” He started tentatively and then shook his head slightly in correction.

“No. Actually, I need to apologize. I’m sorry. I should not have let that...technique continue. I made you uncomfortable… It’s not my habit…”

His gaze dropped to the stone floor, shamed.

“I don’t know how I could begin to make up for the violation of professional boundaries-..”

“Master Skywalker.” She raised a hand to cut him off. 

“The texts did not mention the other... effects of that technique. I think it is not appropriate for a healer to use it with her patients.”

She frowned, “Especially human patients, perhaps.” 

“I should have done further research before attempting it. I am sorry for suggesting it when you were not in a position to fully consider the potential effects. I made you uncomfortable too.”

Luke nodded, but quickly waved away her concern. 

“I agreed to try. You warned me you didn’t know what would happen. The Force is mysterious in its choices sometimes.”

He made a face, as though he’d had worse experiences at the behest of the energy field they all served.

That was likely true.

He let out a breath and seemed to relax, although his face was still flushed with apparent embarrassment.

“I suppose as long as we are feeling equally uncomfortable, we could consider it an unfortunate experiment not to be repeated?”

She let out a sign of relief.

“I would prefer to do that.”

He smiled.

“Thank you. I am grateful to have your counsel”. He squeezed her hand in friendship, and then brought it to his lips once.

She saw an opening.

“I think it might help you to know that your council knows the burden you carry. We see the strain. You are not alone.”

He nodded quietly, dropping her hand.

She continued, thinking of the various griefs that had overwhelmed him the night before.

“You are a being with passions, family, friends, and lovers. To feel this loss is normal.”

He looked rueful and a touch doubtful, but all he said was, “Thank you.”

She decided it was not her place to push any further.

“And now we both have another skill to add to our kits. One that we may one day find beings it would be appropriate to practice it with.”

The Jedi Master chuckled, but his smile was small and sad.

“May that be true for you as you wish, Cilghal. For my part, it seems unlikely.”

As he walked away, she sensed his pain glow brighter for a moment before he soothed it and set it aside.

Cilghal thought of the strong warmth and passion that had flooded from the Master Jedi the night before.

She was not susceptible to visions of the more distant future, but she could not shake the sense that her Jedi Master was wrong. He would, one day, be quite glad to have learned how to refresh another. Quite glad indeed.

She looked forward to the happiness he would find and the greater peace it would bring to the academy when the Force willed it.

**Author's Note:**

> In Balance Point, Luke shyly asks an exhausted Mara if he can "refresh" her with the Force and, after Mara observes the term is mostly a cute euphemism, what follows is a loving energy exchange and a "fade-to-black" moment. 
> 
> This story posits an explanation of where Luke learned how to do that. It is loosely inspired by the popular theory of Victorian doctors treating "hysteria" through stimulating patients to orgasm and the idea that the vibrator was invented to to make this process faster and easier. This theory seems to have been potentially debunked in recent years, but is still appealing as a storytelling tool.
> 
> Thanks for reading.


End file.
